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cwilbur's avatar

How do we fix Fluther?

Asked by cwilbur (14236points) March 7th, 2008

Since the inundation of people from Apple’s link, the quality of questions and answers on Fluther has dropped markedly. This does not bode well for the continued existence of Fluther as a place where interesting people and interesting discussions can be found. The moderators seem to be trying valiantly, but what they’ve been doing so far is not doing enough. So what suggestions can we come up with for making things better?

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108 Answers

squirbel's avatar

I whisper to people.

paulc's avatar

I think the moderators have been doing a pretty good job. Sadly there’s nothing stopping people from giving out inane answers (and somehow having them marked as great when good answers get no credit). I do, however, think it boils down to the demographic that this influx carries with it. I say just keep up your own quality and disregard the debris.

ben's avatar

We have something cooking that we think will restore the quality of the community, while allowing the community to grow. We’re not quite ready to make an announcement but please stay tuned…

Perchik's avatar

I think Ben just implied that we’re all getting virtual tasers!!! (Don’t tase me bro)

Haha in all seriousness though, I think it will work itself out in time. I’ve taken to kindly referring people to Google and politely asking them to spell stuff correctly.

gailcalled's avatar

@Perchik: and in all seriousness, how has that technique worked?

I plow thru the new questions regularly to find some new and interesting topics; not today.

Is there a forum somewhere for adolescent “Advice to the Lovelorn” and possibly “Jr. High School Locker Room”?

Ben, would you like a group of volunteer Vigilantes?

Perchik's avatar

@gail… yeah it’s not working well, but at least I feel like I’m doing something.

I was just thinking about your second thing too. It’s almost as if we need Fluther:Dating and Fluther:high.school.drama spinoffs

cwilbur's avatar

@paulc: I was disregarding the debris, but when I signed on today there was considerably more debris than content. If this trend continues, sometime next week the ratio of debris and noise to content will be so poor that I’ll probably find something else to do.

@sferik: Something needs to be done soon. See above.

@perchik: observation suggests that when you get an influx of trolls and twits into an established online community, things “work themselves out” as the former community departs in droves and abandons the site to the trolls and twits. I have no doubt that this will happen here if things continue on their current path.

If I were fixing things, I’d rejigger points—you get 5 points a day, instead of 1; asking a question costs 5 points; answering costs 1 point; and marking an answer “good answer” takes the points from your account. Something along those lines.

I’d probably also add Flag status for “easily findable elsewhere,” “unanswerable without knowing the people involved,” “high school drama,” and “teenaged idiocy.”

squirbel's avatar

I’d be really sad if older members left. :(

Making questions cost is a good idea.

aaronblohowiak's avatar

I think a large part of this could be pretty simple: allow community tags of questions, and allow us to affirm a community tag. then, let us pick the tags that we don’t ever want to see once they reach a threshold.

so.. somebody posts something h.s. drama. willbur tags it “dramaqueen” and perchik confirms, hossman comes in and confirms it, as does ben. now, i’ve already blacklisted “dramaqueen” from my view (with a threshhold of 3.)

there you go, we can filter it out as a community to our standards.

paulc's avatar

@cwilbur, the patience of the kinds of people creating the debris is likely significantly lower than yours. If they’re ignored, they’ll be the ones to find somewhere else to go. At least that’s my thinking.

Perchik's avatar

As they’ve said before though, the points are not supposed to function as a competition. With your idea, you’d have the problem that some people would not be able to ask a question. I don’t like that. I feel like people should be allowed to ask as many questions as they wish in a day, but the quality of the questions needs to go up.

I like the idea about flagging things as “easily found elsewhere” and “unanswerable without knowing people.” but the other things are problems that people might actually need advice on, they just can’t find the right place to ask. I mean just because we have an influx of high-school type questions, doesn’t mean those questions are stupid. Rather, the high-school questions are very important for high-schoolers, but not so much for those of us in the real world.

I think a categories system would work well. If questions were sorted into categories (“Romance” , “Politics”, ” Opinions” ...etc) then you can view questions that you would be interested in answer. High schoolers want answers to their high school questions, political people want answers to their politics questions. Both view the other type as debris.

aaronblohowiak's avatar

with the solution i am talking about, you would be able to make any tag on any question active on your blacklist with a thershhold. this way the drama people who like that stuff can still have their fluther if they want it, and people who don’t want to see it dont have to. likewise, normal people dont have to read about tech stuff and so on.

paulc's avatar

@aaronblohowiak, your idea about tagging is a good one. However, it would take little effort to sign up a slew of accounts to artificially add tags to questions that aren’t consented to by an actual sampling of people. Lets say I hate your question; I fire up my army of fluther accounts and ensure that it gets tagged as “just plain bad” and it gets dropped off everyone’s view. There’s ways to mitigate this but its a very complicated thing to implement without it being abused.

gailcalled's avatar

I am getting very crafty now at recognizing what will probably be a “twit” question from the user name. There is a pattern; “Which is better; Monster truck or Gigantic Truck?”

Eight's avatar

I am very relieved these question/issues are being addressed. I wondered what happened to all the “old-timers.” BTW I think it’s totally unfair to characterize the adolescent questions as coming from HS. I think the great mass of undergrads – especially amongst the geekdom – are as socially and intellectually challenged.

glial's avatar

How about having to get a certain number of star points from great answers before you can ask a question?

nikipedia's avatar

I rather like the inane questions! Why does everything have to be so serious?

Eight's avatar

I like being serious. Serious questions tend to be highly differentiated; each one opens a treatise of information and conversation. Inane questions tend to be all the same. But very special to the person asking them.

aaronblohowiak's avatar

@paulc, the same could be said for flagging now, and it does not seem to be a problem. If there is a way to agree with a tag, there should be a way to disagree. Also, ideally you could chose to ignore / block any given user (and their tags).

gailcalled's avatar

@all; please stop being so interesting. I had planned to start working on my taxes three hours ago. And where am I? In a Moebus-strip way, this question has become the paradigm of Flutherdom.

@nikipedia: the literate gang is very funny.

Perchik's avatar

@gail I agree! I’ve got a meeting that I must go to, but I’ve been sitting here reading /responding to responses instead of preparing.

@all: anyone notice that the threads on this question have all been well articulated with [mostly] correct spelling?

Zaku's avatar

I’m interested to see what the Fluther designers come up with.

I can think of a few possibilities off-hand. One would be to add a new type of flag that would automatically add a special tag. Then add options to filter out some content for us sophisticates, and/or automatically send a hint to the poster. Like aaronblohowiak suggested as I was typing this. So for example we could flag something as “generic love advice” or “written in h4×0r” (or whatever euphemistic label) and instead of it nagging any moderator for possible removal, it’d just add a tag which users could choose to see if they wanted, or not, depending on their interests and level of procrastination disorder. ;-)

squirbel's avatar

I like being serious, personally – since most of my day-to-day conversations do not enable me to exercise reason and debate. A Fluther experience that is full of interesting (read debatable) questions is enriching, as well as fun!

Eight's avatar

Ahh, spelling. Ahh, grammar. Ahh, reason. Fluther, I love you.

aaronblohowiak's avatar

@perchik: why you be hatin? sees, i jus want to know, should i do it? kant u jus take responsabilitee for mee?

I just wish i could say: show me all the questions that the people i subscribe to answer. Yea. i want to be able to subscribe to the smarties in the house. Then, i could just check “questions for you” and the stuff that the peeps in this thread answer. i want to be able to join the discussions that the smarties partake in so we can help each other grow.

for instance, if perchik answers something, i know i will probably dig it. there isn’t a good way to follow him at this point.

djbuu's avatar

When you are an early adopter to any new idea or site or community, you see this happen when more attention gets placed on it. The problem with Fluther is that the goal of the site is too general. Most people have the same or similar basic questions about life. As more people join and are encouraged to ask questions, you see more of the same. Mak no mistake that this is the natural progression of things and you won’t change it without fundamental changes to the way the site works. The question is, do you want that? Do you want a niche community with specific culture? This isnt the place for it. This site is designed for whoever is using it, not whoever should be using it.

Response moderated
squirbel's avatar

There’s another facet to what you are describing, djbuu. Fluther is a community. Communities have expectations and traditions. This is what the ill-feeling is about. There’s been a way of life here for more than 2 years – and the iPhone crowd (of which I am a part, I joined 8 days ago) has drastically changed the feel.

What do most people do when loud and obnoxious people move into their neighborhood? They pressure them to conform or they move out themselves. I’m worried more about the latter, because we will have lost a valuable resource.

You and I butt heads alot. But I would get bored if you left. :)

delirium's avatar

I’m quite new here, but I have a little suggestion, if i may…
Some sites I know don’t let people post threads for their first day/first few days/X posts.

cake7's avatar

I agree with everyone above. I believe I asked a stupid question before. It was from lack of sleep and boredom. It got only one answer so I knew it was stupid. I really don’t understand why people ask some if the questions they do. I always have the fear of rejection or being flaged as abuse. Hopefully everything will settle down.
ps: @everyone I really enjoy reading your answers.

delirium's avatar

Perhaps a flag of “Not Psychic” would be good for those questions that ask for predictions, and for the ones that lack enough information to even begin answering.

cwilbur's avatar

@perchik: there’s a tension between “people should be allowed to ask as many questions as they want in a day” and “the quality of questions needs to be high.” If you let anyone create as many questions as he or she wants, you’ll get a mass of bad questions—as ought to be evident from looking at the pattern of the last few days. I like the dynamic of not allowing people to ask dozens of questions until they’ve browsed a while and absorbed some of the Fluther dynamic; if they can’t post the first question that comes off the top of their heads, they might look at the older questions and see that “OMG I LUV HIM BUT HE ISNOT INTERESSTD IN ME WAT DO I DO!!?!?!?” has already been asked in the past 24 hours.

@nikipedia: the problem is not that the questions are not serious. If you look back at older questions, a lot of the great ones weren’t entirely serious, and some of them, like the famous cake question, verge on the absurd/surreal.

The problem is that the questions are boring—either because they’re questions where, if I wanted to know the answer, I’d Google for it and get it without asking Fluther, or because they’re bathroom humor about bodily functions (which stopped being amusing by the time I turned 17, or thereabouts), or because they’ve been asked and answered in a slightly different form a dozen times in the past week.

djbuu's avatar

@squirbel….. Poke! Opinions of others that don’t match my own make my life worth livivg.

Vincentt's avatar

How about just having a question cost stars (or whatsit) when it is flagged as abuse? And perhaps have age weighing in in the algorithm for “Questions for you”?

By the way, I really don’t think marking a question as a Great Answer should cost you points, as that way, no (which is, of course, exaggerated) answers will be marked as great anymore.

Riser's avatar

first off, I love this community. This is the “forum” of my dreams and I am so pleaded I have found it.

The first day I was here I asked an iPhone question because I was completely unaware that Fluther.com existed outside of the iPhone universe, part of this was because of the pain medication I was on.

I checked archive threads, written by veterans to see what their complaints were and I made an effort to avoid that.

I won’t type in “texting” mode or ask anyone if Michael loves me, but I will say to to the Fluther mods that this is the only forum I have ever been apart of that does not have a sticky post on top of the main page of questions that explains the preferred criteria.

Had I seen a sticky post labeled “steps on asking questions” I would have been able to read a body of text that would recommend apple discussions, google, etc, remind me that this is a community that has been eatablised well before the iPhone etc etc.

That would have been very illuminating for me and for others as well.

Also a reminder that flagging is not available for the iPhone edition of Fluther and psychologically – that is alienation.

@mods: Thank you guys for creating the forum of my dreams.

bottlerocket's avatar

@djbuu agreed.

Initial impression when first visiting the site also is that it’s faster to ask a question than to search for the question. Hence the question repeatedly asked. There are no categories and the search only denotes another scan through questions to find the topic. It’s faster to ask the question.

Also telling people to “search” is the most asanine answer by a lot of people here. Telling someone to search negates the site. Often times searching Google creates more searching, scanning content for an answer.

cwilbur's avatar

@Riser: it’s okay, you can stop apologizing. You learned, and you’re asking good questions and answering with interesting answers now. We’re trying to figure out how to discourage bad questions and answers in the future.

@bottlerocket: asking people for answers that can easily be found on google or wikipedia is the most as*i*nine sort of question to ask. Expecting people to do basic research for you rather than partners in the discussion misses the point of Fluther.

And if searching Google shows that there’s controversy or lots of viewpoints, that means that it’s an excellent candidate for a Fluther question. But not even checking Google first shows an incredible amount of laziness and disrespect.

bottlerocket's avatar

@cwilbur Whoa! Laziness and disrespect for not checking Google? That’s a hefty responsibility for everyone to bear.

You should end an email to Ben and Andrew suggesting that Fluther’s new tagline should be “You ask a question (after you have completely exhausted Google) and we’ll get it to the right people (Google).

Perchik's avatar

@bottle. I suggest you click learn more at the top, to learn about Fluther.

Fluther is a means for you to ask people questions that you cannot easily find information about. It is ridiculous to ask questions that can be found via google like “How many ounces are in a cup?” That is laziness.

cwilbur's avatar

@bottlerocket: Indeed, laziness and disrespect. When you ask a simple factual question without checking Google and Wikipedia first, you’re expecting other people to do work to find out the answer to a question that you asked, when you’re not even willing to do the minimal work it would take to search the web. That shows marked laziness on your part, and is disrespectful of other people’s time.

bottlerocket's avatar

@ cwilbur – still disagres. Disrespectful of people’s time? 30 seconds to jot down a reply? I think your stretching it there. You choose to either answer it or not. This is not a site of moral obligation.

I think the bigger issue are the “non-Google” grade school questions currently popping up.

@Perchik – I don’t disagree that “How many ounces in a cup” is a lazy question.

cwilbur's avatar

@bottlerocket: it’s not a site of moral obligation, but it is a site of generous helpfulness, and when you abuse that generous helpfulness, it goes away.

bottlerocket's avatar

@Perchik: I suggest you click learn more at the top to learn more about Fluther. It mentions nothing about “asking questions that you cannot easily find”.

bottlerocket's avatar

@cwilbur: Exactly! Then, “and I don’t mean this literally” go away. Ignore it. Don’t answer it.

Vincentt's avatar

@bottlerocket – but if those questions are the majority of the questions on Fluther, then you’d have to ignore almost all of Fluther. Which means leaving Fluther. Obviously, we don’t want people like cwilbur that want to answer intelligent questions to leave, so that Fluther will only contain questions to which the answers have already been present elsewhere forever.

bottlerocket's avatar

@Vincett – you are correct. We want people like cwilbur, Perchik and the like to stay to answer relevant questions. But there is no criteria set by this site in how to ask a question.

Riser's avatar

I agree with Bottlerocket in that the biggest nuisance, for me, is wondering if the right girl is better than the girl that’s definitely wrong, but hot.

cwilbur's avatar

@Vincentt: thanks for the compliment, but I’m not the only one that applies to.

@bottlerocket: there are no formal criteria that are written down, but consider that you’ve got three people who have been here considerably longer than you telling you that there are bad questions. One of the problems with the recent influx of new people is that the new people don’t share the same view of what makes a “good question” as the old people do, and that’s one of the things we’re trying to solve.

@Riser: meditate on the fact that Vin Diesel has a twin brother, and get back to me in the morning.

aaronblohowiak's avatar

@cwilbur: preach on!

@bottlerocket: don’t come to a party and then tell everybody they aren’t dressed correctly. this is a community.

Riser's avatar

@cwilbur: If they both act that still doesn’t make one complete good actor.

cwilbur's avatar

@Riser: I wasn’t considering his acting skill.

Riser's avatar

@cwilbur: I know but it certainly underscores what you were suggesting… And with that I’ll get back on topic.

bottlerocket's avatar

@aaronblohowiak – to whom did I say they were not dressed correctly. Am I not eluding to the fact that this is a community.

@cwilbur – i did not even consider that were three guys determining questions.
“New people don’t share the same view as the old” – Now that’s fascinating and worth an new question chain on!

By your leave.

squirbel's avatar

I’m new and I do. If I wanted the other option, I would still participate on Yahoo! Answers.

paulc's avatar

I’ll put this here since we’re all very opinionated here and its basically on-topic.

I recently answered a question that was mis-spelt slightly but it was a good question that hadn’t been asked yet (regarding the current spat between Columbia and Ecuador). It was pretty clear that it was asked by someone who’s first language was not English but the spelling was better than I’ve seen by some English speakers and it didn’t even contain repeated punctuation (!!!???).

The question got axed even after I spent a good deal of time crafting an answer to get the topic on track for people who might not have fully understood it. I don’t think it should have been removed but it was, and quickly. What do you think?

Also, are questions reviewed with answers before being moderated or are you just shown the question itself?

bottlerocket's avatar

If every question should be checked on Google prior to asking, then what is a non-Google-able question?

bottlerocket's avatar

@squirbel absolutely right.
@perchik you certainly have asked a lot of Google-able questions.

Zaku's avatar

@paulc: The way you described it, I have no idea why it was removed. Did you not get an explanation? I would click the Contact button at top and ask.

andrew's avatar

@paulc: I removed the question due to the spelling in the title.

Every time we remove a question we allow the user to edit it and we’ll put it back on the site.

Every question removed is vetted by ben and erik and me. We make mistakes, we try to look out for the community, and we pay attention to threads like this.

I have more to say re: googlable questions and guidelines, but I’m in a sxsw panel.

bulbatron9's avatar

“Can’t we all just get along? I’m newer, and I love this site. Savoir-faire in full despair. Nobody is perfect, everybody hits the wrong key every once-in-a-while, and without new users this collective would get old and stale. To ME, Fluther is there for you to learn from other people’s veiwpoint. I’m a carpenter, if you need to know anything about construction, I might be able to help you out. However, if you want to now about molecular engineering, proper use of the comma, what women think, or just about anything else then I am not your man. My point is, well I forgot, but I love Fluther anyway. I’m sorry

LuckVIII's avatar

Forgive me but I am new here so I may not know everything that you girls and guys know. I love fluther because you get to ask questions and get a feel of other people opinions. The possible reason why new comers like me ask silly questions is partly because a decription of fluther is vague (or at the very least the iPhone version of fluther). Please don’t hate me but isn’t one person opinion of what constitute a silly aka bad question may be something important to someone else. Sometimes I think some question have turn from fluther to fluff but hey it took someone time to write it up. Continue writing your questions and your insight for isn’t it moral obligation to help those who are less enlightened? Do we not become the thing we claim not to be if we become narrow minded? The moment we start excluding some people question/opinion do we become no better than tyrannical government. One suggestion maybe limit new users to a set number of questions/answer per day. Maybe also having members with high ratings flag stuff as either deep thought provoking questions or fluff.

bottlerocket's avatar

@LuckVIII – well put. Your second sentence nails it.

gailcalled's avatar

@all: I leave for a few hours in order to live my life, and what happens? 39 new responses!

I was thinking about setting up “The Doofus of the Day” award…but perhaps that is unkind.

And for the newcomers, remember that you can have wonderful private conversations via the “comments for you” link at upper right. And just click on a username here in order to send him/her a private remark. (Such as hahaha, LOL, smiley faces.)

This in from a Flutherer who has disappeared, sadly. He is a college prof and said, in part:

“Regarding the influx of imbeciles here lately: ouch! Sometimes it makes me feel like a curmudgeon too (glad I’m knot aloone on that one LOL);

I notice it happening in “real life” in my classes at school-it’s startling to say the least to find that my students are given the credential of “high school graduate” yet have reading and comprehension below 8th grade level!”
——————————————
@paulc; as an aside, I am stunned that English is not your native tongue. I never would have guessed it. And keep in mind that
sometimes perfectly reasonable questions remain unanswered…I did notice that you talked about Columbia vs. Equador and knew what you meant, but I know nothing about Central American and S American politics.

paulc's avatar

@gailcalled, just to clarify it was the questioner that was likely a non native English speaker and I was answering her/his question. Sorry if that didn’t make sense.

gailcalled's avatar

Of course, now that I went back and reread your earlier response, I see that I am the problem. Too much time spent brooding here, I guess…Your English is elegant and enviable.

segdeha's avatar

That so many people have contributed to this thread shows the passion and commitment folks have to Fluther. That’s something to celebrate!

Here are my ideas:

1) When you first create an account, you can ask 1 question / day as long as you’re stuck at 1 point. As your points go up, you get to ask more questions / day.

2) When you post your first question, you get a notice that says “We think it’s super-cool that you’re choosing to ask a question! Here are some guidelines you may want to consider…”

3) We really need something like Digg where you get notified that “Your question may have already been answered.” Except, unlike Digg, it should only show up if there are relevant matches. There’s nothing as “fun” as trying to implement natural language search, eh, Fluther gods?

Eight's avatar

How many more answers before this Q surpasses the cake question, or is that “jumps the cake?”

Vincentt's avatar

@cwilbur – sure, I was making an example, if I’d have to name all valuable members I’d miss out on people and I don’t want that ;-)

@segdeha – I really agree with point 3 (the others as well, but especially #3), but yeah, do not notify of duplicate questions when there are no really similar questions, it’s very annoying at Digg:)

@Eight – now that’s a question you could answer yourself ;-)
(Yes, I know that you did not really expect an answer, it was a joke :P)

squirbel's avatar

I really wish I knew where I was getting points… My score is going up but I have no clue what I did that was positive! Thanks flutherdom!

cake7's avatar

Knowing where your score comes from would be cool. What is the cake question?I would search it bit I’m on my phone.
What a coincidence that my name is cake.

Vincentt's avatar

cake (that is a coincidence), meet the legendary question :)

gailcalled's avatar

@ all; most recent question in; possibly a contender for the Nobel Prize?

Guy problems!!!!!!!! HELP

cake7's avatar

I answered this question sometimes a dumb question really needs help. I think if I were in this situation I would want someone else to ask it before I would so I would have any negative feed back. That is just me but sometimes people really need input on a relationship question. I thought she went into detail about it, it wasn’t a “do you think he likes me question”

Zaku's avatar

I hear you gail, but I made an effort to turn that thread into something valuable.

(simultaneous answer with cake7)

Ya, cake7, she’s actually describing a pattern, and getting a flood of replies that won’t help her see out of the pattern, which could make a huge difference if she gets it now as a teen. Not that my brilliant answer will do it, but it’s worthwhile to try, others will get something from the suggested other way of thinking, etc.

What we can do, is set examples.

cake7's avatar

I just think that maybe not all questions are or should be flagged as abuse. I think it actually takes people time to think up questions and put them out there for the world of fluther to read. I do know this doesn’t aply to everyone I just like to give people the benift of the doubt.

Zaku's avatar

Yes, it can take a lot of will to help themselves in the face of societies’ menaces for a young person to ask a question like some of those, and our society has been letting these people down, and the result of what everyone does and doesn’t do for them, will shape the future.

Again, seems to me like developing the content-filtering system a bit more could possibly handle the issue.

Riser's avatar

and let us reflect on our teenage years as well. Sure reading “MONSTER DELIMA! NEED 2 NO IF HOT GRL IS BETTER THEN GOOD GRL!!!!!!!”

is not exactly our idea of a.. ahem “monster dilemma” but in the world of a teenager it is just as important as the economic crises we’re about to face or domestic gas prices skyrocketing again.

Political climates in a global view are true “monster dilemmas” but we’ve also left “blankHS” and the drama that it encompasses.

neonez's avatar

@Riser: Yeah, its ok to be emotional and people do and should but what are parents and friends for? A real-world person with feelings and the ability to comfort is much better than 4 lines of text from an anonymous internet user.

segdeha's avatar

@neonez, In an ideal world, I agree. Thing is, some folks don’t have people in their lives they can trust with that kind of question, or they just feel more comfortable with the (relative) anonymity the intertubes afford.

cake7's avatar

or sometimes they just need someones opinion that doesn’t have any history of them.

Riser's avatar

not to mention… how many intelligent/mature friends did we have in High School?

neonez's avatar

:D Good point(s)

Still, there has to be a good place for that kind of thing because fluther just isn’t.

Riser's avatar

Yeah the last two questions posted are along those lines. :/

delirium's avatar

Squirbel: I agree! I really wish that I could have a list of where all the mysterious points are coming from. O.O

segdeha's avatar

I’m pretty sure it says somewhere that points are awarded for asking and answering questions, getting answers rated as “great”, and making / receiving comments from other Fluther users. I don’t think they publish the exact formula so that people don’t try to game the system.

squirbel's avatar

Well, we understand the formulae perfectly, it is the actual approved-of answers we are looking for. :D

delirium's avatar

They do publish it, and I more meant what answers they were coming from, or users if that isn’t an invasion of privacy.

blast, a second late!

squirbel's avatar

Yeah… Some of my answers were pure snark and I felt guilty for getting points, lol. I am not fond of spotlights :O

delirium's avatar

It seems to be that some pure snark answers are appreciated more than the serious ones. That’s probably why I like this place so much. ;)

Riser's avatar

I will give a great answer to anything that is either: very informative or very unique. That’s right not just unique… VERY unique. :P I have got to get some sleep.

delirium's avatar

Still awake?
I think anything is unique after being awake that long. ;)

Riser's avatar

hahahaah…. yeaaaah. Tis true delirium <————- A name I am stealing for the time being.

delirium's avatar

Hahaha, only if you have hte hair to go with it!! ;)

Riser's avatar

I know make up artists, this can be arranged.

delirium's avatar

Lucky! I considered trying it, but I wouldn’t wanna have to bleach my hair first. I think that could be bad.

gailcalled's avatar

@riser and delirium; take it private or get a room :-)

segdeha's avatar

C’mon, gailcalled… Maybe Fluther needs a haircut! ;-)

gailcalled's avatar

@seg: perhaps it does, but I find the private IMs tedious and unsuitable for me, at least. Maybe I have outlived my usefulness here. Altho I did enjoy answering yesterday’s question about Paulo Friere.

Delirium and Riser are obviously having fun, but they can do that elsewhere, particulalry given the nature of this question. Cwilbur is a masterful moderator here, and GDKimble has re-iterated this issue today.

http://www.fluther.com/disc/7817/how-do-we-fix-fluther/#quip44653

gailcalled's avatar

Sorry; last http: was self-referential. I meant this:

Latest literate fluther fulmination

breedmitch's avatar

Why not do away with points completely and replace with “member since: date”? I think the points thing makes it a game for some of the youngsters.

Zaku's avatar

@breedmitch: Because it’s fun for others as well.
I’d rather just give gail delete privileges. ;-)

Seriously though, I think it adds actual value to the site because it gives a way to give and receive feedback and acknowledgment when value is given to someone else.

Hmm, I think total score is the tempting and less meaningful part. But I’d love to see the eventual-planned feature that would let us see easily which questions are getting appreciated. Maybe I’m self-deluding a bit, but I am interested in which of my contributions are being well-received.

gailcalled's avatar

Watch out for the iron hand in the iron fist. And remember that absolute power corrupts absolutely. We definitely need a committee.

Zaku's avatar

@gail: I don’t trust the committee. I’d prefer your iron rule. I’m also not serious.

cwilbur's avatar

I completely support the right of lovelorn high school students to ask questions about their relationships that (a) the answers to which are completely obvious to anyone over 25, and possibly 20; and (b) have been asked eight times in the past 24 hours.

However, the high frequency and low literacy of such questions means that those of us who are not lovelorn high school students are going to be skipping the vast bulk of Fluther questions. Gail notes, above, that Delirium and Riser were having fun, but could be doing that elsewhere; the problem from where I see it, is that gailcalled and hossman and breedmich and GD Kimble and I could all be having fun elsewhere too.

This discussion isn’t about rights but about values. What do we (and more importantly, the Fluther admins) value? What can we and they do to encourage what we value, and discourage what we don’t?

And, most importantly, is it already too late?

Eight's avatar

It’s not a question of “skipping the vast bulk…,” if nothing in the first screenful of questions grabs my attention I’ll move on. I’ve been moving on a lot.

jrpowell's avatar

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAH…. One step forward and 5280 back.

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